Reaching For the Sun
by TheLostMaximoff
Summary: Josh Guthrie's thoughts on his new life at Xavier's and the love he has lost.


Reaching For the Sun

By TheLostMaximoff

Disclaimer: Don't own these characters. I just read "She Lies with Angels" and have been on a poetic sort of kick because of my 19th Century Lit class. R/R and see what you think.

They say you never truly forget the first person you loved. Sure you move on but the scars still linger. There's an emptiness inside you, a feeling of being forever incomplete and alone. You wouldn't think it'd hurt so bad. I'm only eighteen, after all, and still young. I've still got my whole life, they say, to find that special someone. But what do I say? I say I found her already and now I'll forever be trying to find someone to fill her shoes. I'll always fail too because no one could truly replace her.

Julia. The name is beautiful. It rolls off your tongue like music. Even my voice, gifted though it is, couldn't make her name sound more heavenly. Julia, my darling Julia. It's tough to really own anything when you have nine brothers and sisters. I guess that's why I treasured her so much. She wasn't some hand-me-down from big brother Sam who was too busy off havin' adventures to take care of the family and left me to do it. She wasn't something I had to share with the younger ones like Jeb because "family comes first". Julia was mine alone, my radiant angel.

I've been told I write beautifully, that I have a poet's soul. I'm not sure now whether or not I take that as a compliment. This gift I have, this magic with words, is strange. Before I saw Julia again I just did it, you know? I just let the emotion flow, not even really knowing that all the while I was writing those songs I was thinking of her. And then when I met her again I said to myself, 'Surely this is the muse that has driven me, the passion that has burned inside me and spurred me on'. She was my heart, my joy personified. I had survived on the memory of her alone and when I met her again after eight long years I knew in that moment I couldn't stand to be without her again.

But now? It's all tangled up now and I can't unravel the knot inside my stomach. I run my hands over a guitar and all the notes and chords seem a foreign tongue to me. I stare at a piece of notebook paper and search vainly for the power to create something yet nothing happens. The magic was part of her and now that she is gone part of it is as well. Love is what created all those melodies and verses. Without a love so pure and intense how can I create again?

Julia, precious Julia. I still feed off of your memory yet the hunger for your touch consumes me still. I have written many a verse about you, my angel, since you were taken from me. I could fill a thousand notebooks with lyrics of your beauty and still it would not be enough to say what has truly been and always will be in my heart. Perhaps one day, if I am so lucky enough, I will sing all of those songs to you, my love. Maybe after I am done with my serenades we shall lie together as we used to when we were kids. So innocent then and so very young we were. I learned a lot in those eight years. My clumsy attempts at poetry grew more sophisticated. I learned rhyme and rhythm. I learned how to turn words and feelings into art, into beauty. I did it all for you, Julia. I wanted to give you things to remember me by. I never wanted you to forget me, Julia, because I could never forget someone like you.

Things are different for me now though. This place, this school, is so new and very much not where I want to be. I long to be with you, my love, so that I may feel the sweet touch of your lips against mine that is the truest sensation of heaven I have ever known. But you are so far out of my reach and so I remain here to learn how to save this world I barely even wish to be a part of anymore. After all, how beautiful can such a world be without you in it?

They have given me a new name here, Julia. I'm no longer Josh Guthrie, the boy you passionately yearned for. I'm Icarus now, an angel and god among men. I trust you know the story, my dear. I'm sure in those eight years of boarding school they taught it to you. Icarus died because he flew too high and tried to grasp something beyond his reach. He failed and plummeted to the sea below. Drowning seems such a peaceful way to die. I would like to do so in order to see you again. Perhaps Icarus is who I truly am. I am a poet who tried to grasp a love that was too far from my reach, a beauty too wondrous to ever fully comprehend. In truth, I am still grasping for you. Until that day comes, dear Julia, when you and I are together again I fear that I will always be reaching for the sun.


End file.
